Graduate Business Analyst

Graduate Business Analyst x 3
Salary £28,800 – £32,400negotiable
Locations Leeds
Reference BG1131

Our client is a highly successful mid-sized lender who has been operating in the UK for over 10 years and operate both online and through a network of retail stores. They are currently undergoing a period of substantial business growth and investment, including rebuilding all of our products and systems (customer facing, back office and MI systems). Additionally they growing their analytical team and are looking for highly talented individuals who can help take the business to the next level.

With a view to accelerating the pace of business growth within the last 12 months the business has hired a new Chief Executive, Chief Finance Officer and Chief Risk Officer and created new posts for Heads of Decision Science, Credit Risk and Product Analytics. Between them the new team has over 80 years of experience (much of it at senior executive level) within organisations such as Barclays Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Virgin Money, CapitalOne, NewsCorp, Experian & CallCredit.

Candidates joining the organization will have great exposure throughout our organization (up to Chief Executive level) right from day one and will have the opportunity to build best practice analytical solutions using state-of-the-art industry tools and cutting edge techniques whilst working closely with, and learning from, seasoned industry experts.

All successful candidates will be given personal responsibility and ‘ownership’ for optimizing part of the business from day one and given all the training and support needed to do that. The business does however strongly believe in broadening the skills and experiences of its staff so there will be lots of opportunities to get involved with and ultimately rotate into areas of personal interest.

The role:
You will be reporting directly to an experienced ‘Head of’ within the analytics team the candidate would be working within one of the following areas:

• Credit Risk (broadly focused on who we accept/decline and how much we lend them)
• Decision Science (building statistical regression models to predict key customer behaviours such as likelihood of repaying)
• New product development (designing new financial products for sale to the UK market including understanding and modelling customer outcomes, behaviour and profitability)
• Marketing analysis (optimising all of our marketing – including digital, TV, Radio, email, SMS etc..)
• Operational analytics (making our operations run as efficiently as possible – designing what all of our operations colleagues do on a daily basis, prioritizing

Successful candidates will get personal accountability and responsibility for becoming an expert in one of these areas and optimising that aspect of our business (e.g. designing and launching a new product, or optimising our TV marketing spend). Appropriate support will be provided to successful candidates to train them in their area.

Skills required
They are looking for exceptional candidates who have the potential to become a hybrid between a business leader, business analyst and data analyst.

Typically candidates have strong A-levels (normally ABB+), including an ‘A’ at A-level maths.

You will need a good degree 2.1 or above in an applied numerical degree (Physics, Engineering, Stats and Operations Research, numerically heavy Economics courses etc…) from one of the top 10 universities. Target universities include Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, Kings, LSE, Warwick, Manchester & UMIST, Edinburgh & Durham although other similar calibre institutions will be considered for exceptional candidates.

• Candidates will normally have demonstrated ‘excellence’ in many aspects of their personal and professional lives (e.g. high grades from top institution and have excelled in their extra-curricular activity)
• Strong attention to detail and must be able to use rigorous and structured approaches to problem solving and be able to use data effectively to draw conclusions and make considered recommendations
• Massive drive and ambition, willing to take ownership and be responsible for materially improving business performance
• Strong conceptual ability, both for analytical problem for solving and shaping the technical design of solutions (including new products)
• Ability to communicate with stakeholders at a range of levels on both technical and non-technical subjects
• Although all training would be provided any experience and interest in coding (either computer coding such as C, C++, C#, VB,.net, web coding etc…, or data extraction and manipulation coding e.g. SQL, SAS, SPSS etc…) would be highly advantageous.

Structuring and framing analysis:-
• be comfortable, ‘white-boarding’ a problem, identifying the key dimensions to consider, how to select the data needed, how to structure that data to drive insights and know how to turn those insights into recommendations.
• be comfortable with analytical approaches to building and testing hypotheses. Must be able to ‘rule out the impossible/implausible’ as well as proving that which is true.
• With coaching they must be able to figure out which data to select (e.g. what time period? What exclusions? What products?) and throughout this process, they would need to be conscious of ensuring the data selected is fit for purpose (e.g. no bias’ introduced etc), and must be able to drive the insights needed.

Getting the Data:
• With appropriate training (assuming no existing knowledge) will be able to code in SAS and SQL to be able to extract the data they require and manipulate it to generate insights.
• Will be comfortable dealing with information coming from a range of different types of places, including written, numerical and process flow presentations of information.
• Must be capable of working productively with IT to develop business specifications for changes.
• Must be resourceful in getting the information they need and be willing to proactively seek out SMEs and to develop understanding of business processes & data sources. Where SME’s don’t exist must be comfortable working with a range of stakeholders (e.g. developers and other analysts) to build the information needed from scratch (e.g. reverse engineering from code or outcome data).
Analysing the data
• With appropriate training (assuming no formal knowledge) will be comfortable performing efficient, complex analyses within the SQL environment (merging, aggregating and sorting data), within Excel (using pivot tables & charting data, some knowledge of VBA would be a plus) and most likely using SAS too, in particular the use of statistical modelling techniques.
• They will become experts at finding ways to difficult to achieve analytical solutions which are robust and help drive the business forwards.
• They must show an aptitude for analytical problem solving techniques (e.g. developing a series of hypotheses which can be tested, developing mutually exclusive but cumulatively exhaustive groups, be experienced at using data to ‘tell a story’, etc…).

Communication
• Must be able to clearly communicate to all levels both within and outside of the organisation.
• Should be comfortable talking both conceptually and specifically and must be able to clearly articulate the output of analysis and its meaning and consequences, including to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Must be able to pro-actively build strong relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders (again both within and outside of the organisation).
• Must be able to operate as a technical expert but also able to develop a broader understanding of how the business operates and how the conclusions and recommendations from their analysis will impact the wider business.

If you are a suitable graduate and you are interested in developing a career within sales, please send an up to date copy of your CV as soon as possible to Kate Evans.

Candidates must be legally entitled to work and live in the UK.